This week Alberto Gonzales (an embarrassment to Latinos the world over) announced the arrests of 7 men who were alleged to be plotting and training for huge attacks to rival 9/11 - including blowing up the Sears Tower in Chicago. They were caught, in part, because of a government informant who told them he was connected to Al Qaida and even had the men swear an oath to Al Qaida through him. Time magazine sums up the threat as follows:*No connection to Al Qaida.
*They didn't behave like terrorists - often very publicly "behaving more like a Hollywood B-movie version of terrorists than the real thing."
*The indictment only refers to a desire by the groups leader to target the Sears tower (I think the homeless guy down the street has the same desire.)
*According to the indictment these men wanted to wage a "full ground war" to "kill all the devils we can." Of course this "quote" was even in headlines the day the story broke, but it remains hearsay, and for all we know was never said or said by someone under the influence.
*They asked the informant for supplies to wage a ground war in the U.S. Understanding how a small group of men was going to launch such a war requires a great deal of fantasy and imagination, but the Justice Department under Bush eats that stuff up.
*They didn't have the money or materials to carry out either the bombing of a Sears lawn mower or the Sears Tower, yet tax payers supplied the dollars for the undercover informant, the investigation, FBI staff, FBI equipment, Gonzales' press conference, etc. etc.
Meanwhile, we have terrorists (not people of color so perhaps not as high a priority for the feds) who have the means and are dead serious about killing human beings who are exposed not by the FBI, but by their families. Why isn't the FBI infiltrating groups who aspire to blow up abortion clinics or attack gay bars? Perhaps because they'd rather not investigate their own family members.
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